Mitigating Rape Culture Using Sex Education

Educating young people correctly about consent, being respectful partners, and on their rights and sexuality is a very effective way to end sexual violence and promote healthy relationships.

The Importance of Sex Education in Mitigating Rape Culture

Sex education has become envisaged as a golden opportunity to shape the understanding of young people when it comes to sexuality in its entirety. Teaching the positive aspects of relationships and sexuality can be very impactful on the safety and health of young people. When they are trained on more than just the risk, they are likely to be more engaged in sexual education. The most effective way to administer or depart sexual education is to ensure that it is robust and not just centered on abstinence.

Rape Culture and What It Relies On

A culture of rape is reliant on things like slut-shaming and victim-blaming. Moreover, it relies on old ideas of consent and gender norms. Sex education is, therefore, an opportunity and a method to teach healthy relationships and consent and is effective in helping to keep young people safe.

What is Rape Culture?

Rape culture is a term used to refer to how typical sexual assault gets made to seem in society. It means living in a culture where sexual violence and rape are common and inevitable, and not a big deal in some aspects. The most common victims of this kind of assault are gender minorities and women.

What Feeds into Rape Culture?

Rape culture gets fed by the various ways we joke about, tolerate, and normalize sexual violence. Such violence is not always captured in legal definitions when considerations become made on what qualifies as sexual assault in the justice system. There is a wide range when it comes to sexually violent behaviors, and there has been the normalization of most of these behaviors even as they contribute to the prevalence and permissiveness of increasingly extreme behaviors.

Sexual Violence and Its Use as a Weapon

In some instances, sexual violence gets deliberately used as a weapon to punish, scare, or humiliate. The major reasons why individuals commit sexual abuse can become tied to sexual entitlement and desire. Crucial phenomena like the lack of understanding when it comes to sexual consent, patterns of those with power over others due to gender and race, and how men and boys are encouraged to bond over aggressive sexual conquests or sexuality, contribute to increased rates of sexual violence. Sexual violence is a broad term used to refer to any psychological or physical violence carried out by targeting sexuality or through sexual means.

Sex Education as a Way to Help Young People Nurture Healthy Relationships

As such, sex education is an opportunity to support young people and children in developing the skills to nurture and initiate healthy, respectful, and strong relationships. It entails open discussions on power and gender within relationships, and inequalities between genders are part of the most persistent and propagative power dynamics. Understanding and appreciating gender can help nurture increasing equality in relationships. It gets acknowledged as a crucial way to avoid sexual, intimate partner, and gender-based violence.